Perdition
by Idoloni
Summary: She doesn't cry. Not while she's still within the walls of Science, not while She or any other robot is still watching her, judging, evaluating, testing. It's not until she reaches the edge of that endless wheatfield, crests the small hill vainly attempting to hide the horizon from her view, that she falls to her knees and sobs.


**Perdition**

_**}{ . }{ . }{**_

She doesn't cry. She has every reason to just break down and weep, weep for everything she's lost, everything she's left behind. She's been forced not once but three times, four if you count what happened in Old Aperture, into a generally fatal testing process by various insane homicidal computers, one of which she'd actually trusted (_foolish! What did you think would happen?_)and, dare she say, even liked. She's been shot at, flung through the air, betrayed, pummelled down an elevator shaft, sucked into the empty void of space, if only for a few moments, and viciously insulted more times than she cared to remember. Not to mention, of course, all the uncountable years (_or so she assumes; she can't know for sure, not yet, and she doesn't trust any of Aperture's wretched computers_) that she's spent in stasis, unchanging, miles below the surface while the world moved on without her (_and, oh, how it has changed in her absence_).

But she doesn't cry. Not while she's still within the walls of Science, not while She or any other blasted robot is still watching her, judging, evaluating, _testing_.

It's not until she reaches the very edge of that nigh-endless wheatfield, beyond Her influence (_I hope_), until she crests the small hill vainly attempting to hide the horizon from her view, that she falls to her knees and sobs.

Below her lies a small town, one she remembers from Before. She recalls stopping here for ice-cream more than once, admiring some diligent landscape designer's pride and joy, giggling at someone's joke (_she doesn't remember who – stasis has stolen much of her memory, or so she assumes; she remembers remembering more last time around_). She remembers this village as being vibrant and lively, a place of happiness and the stage of some of her favourite (_remaining_) memories.

Now all she knows is that she will never be able to relive those jubilant recollections without dredging up this one, too.

The walls of the buildings (_painted all shades of the rainbow, every house a different colour_) are drab and grey and insipid, the stone crumbling and riddled with bullet holes. The streets (_lined with trees and parked cars and people_) are paved in what she first assumes to be red brick, but slowly realises that the dull crimson is due to something far more sickening. Even from here she can see the corpses and had she not been upwind of the village, she would surely have smelled them too. Limp figures (_that proud landscaper, the cheerful café waitress, the children playing in their front garden, all those people she briefly met, never knew_) lie slumped against blood-spattered walls, others collapsed in the street and yet more, she expects, in the houses. She tries her hardest not to see the smaller bodies, the ones cradled in the slack arms of those much taller. It doesn't work.

She sits there on that innocent grassy hill and she cries like she's never cried before, well beyond Her reach (_maybe_) but so very far from safe. She cries for all the people she ever knew and for all those she might've done, all those she never will. She weeps for her world, because wherever she is now, this is not it.

(_I hope not._)

* * *

**Disclaimer: **_Is this really, _truly_ necessary? It's not like the answer is obvious or anything. /sarcasm**  
**_

**A/N: **_Haven't actually played the game, likely never will. Doesn't mean I can't write for it, though. Also, this is my headcanon. Because I'm a monster._

_I was listening to 'Falling Down' by Oasis when I was writing this; more specifically, the intro/outro. It fits perfectly. Also, a larger version of the cover is available on my dA: theshadow79 dot deviantart dot com  
_


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